Architecture for Humanity – Earthquake Resistant Schools

The SHELTER blog has started a partnership with Architecture for Humanity. We’ll have the opportunity to update you on the great work AFH is doing here and abroad. Look for Q&A’s with project managers, notes about design contests and news from AFH. Here’s an article to start us off. You can find the original post by Karl Johnson at the Architecture for Humanity website.

Members of Architecture for Humanity found themselves in the East Bay late last week, holding a structures workshop for Earth Day. The beneficiaries of this exercise: a dozen middle school students. The AfH team presented principles of earthquake-resistant design and distributed kits of parts (cardboard sites, sized applicator sticks and jujubes) and programs for a school.

This pilot exercise might find extended life as part of a school-design curriculum being developed by Architecture for Humanity and StudentsRebuild.org. StudentsRebuild is an international program facilitating middle and high school student teams raising money for permanent school construction in Haiti. The curriculum will teach the teams the process of designing and building a school in Haiti, including a unit on structural design for earthquakes and hurricanes. The lessons will be accompanied by interactive conferencing with building professionals supported by Global Nomads Group.